Descent
by Alliandre
Summary: Leia's fall, told in a series of drabbles.
1. astute as her dead mother

**First Quartet:**  
Leia

1. _astute as her dead mother_

Leia Organa – _no, it's Skywalker, now, isn't it? it'd been Skywalker since her fateful trip to Coruscant, since Vader saw her with a nervously evasive Bail Organa and knew her for his own_– tip-toed through the high dome-roofed and eerily empty halls of the Imperial Palace on Coruscant, heading towards the solitary garden in Lord Vader's royally-appointed Apartments in the opulent Palace that sprawled across hundreds of acres of land in the heart of the coruscate city – that was the heart of corruption itself. Even at eleven years old, Leia Organa knew that reform was needed.


	2. and homesick for her family

2. _and homesick for her family_

Leia Skywalker missed home. She missed her father –_who's still my father,_she maintained fiercely though DNA tests and Lord Vader and the Emperor and the Force said otherwise – and the beautiful gardens on Alderaan. The quiet, serene courtyard reminiscent of Naboo was just like everything else in the East Tower that was Vader's home: conservative, sparsely decorated with a sense of emptiness that spoke of little use. As though no-one was ever there.

And until Leia arrived, bereft of her family and friends and thrust into a new life where she prayed she didn't belong and where she didn't want to be, nobody had ever been there.


	3. stubborn as her unknown brother

3. _stubborn as her unknown brother_

"You don't like me, child, do you?" the Emperor asked. Mellifluous words feigning hurt hid dark intentions, and even little Leia was smart enough to pick up on the oily feeling his presence seared on her soul.

Her shoulders squared. She'd been a princess of Alderaan before she came here. Her back was straight. As a princess, she knew how to hold herself regally. And her chin rose, jutting out stubbornly when she told him, "You didn't like me first."

Beneath his mask, Vader frowned, seeing someone else while the Emperor gave a sickly laugh and his muddy-yellow eyes stared at Vader, burning with an unspoken question.


	4. and then came kay lee

4. _and then came Kay Lee_

Leia liked Kay Lee.

Kay Lee was her friend not because of her father and not because she had been a princess. Kay Lee was her friend before she knew any of that, and when she learned months later she didn't care. She was Leia's sole companion, confidante, the only one Leia was comfortable with.

Leia Skywalker liked to believe they would be friends forever.  
Leia Skywalker knew better then that, but she was still blindsided.


	5. temptation easily cast aside

_Second Quartet:_  
Doubts

a. **temptation easily cast aside**

"Are you declining?" the Emperor asked sharply, yellow eyes narrowing with consternation and contempt.

Back straight, Leia. Shoulders squared, Leia. Chin raised, Leia. Say no, Leia.

"Yes, Excellency."

Young Skywalker was too smart to sell her soul to the devil for nothing but promises of power. Much as she loved him, she wasn't her father.

"He won't teach you." Was it a threat or a statement? Or both.

_Because you ordered him not to._"I know, Excellency." She was stolid in her denial, the Emperor would give her that much.


	6. for bonds no sith can feign

b. **for bonds no Sith can forge**

"I want to be a Senator." Leia traipsed into his office in his apartments.

"Absolutely not." He wondered when she grew so bold.

"But,_Father_," she whined.

"No." Placid, but implacable. "Politicians are all greedy, self-serving fools."

"Kay Lee said the same. But I'll be the first who isn't."

_The second,_Vader amended silently. "...maybe."

Leia clapped in triumph and exited, leaving him to his work.


	7. does darkness truly reside?

c. **does darkness truly reside?**

"Don't you _dare_," Leia all but hissed, starting towards the offender. She was extremely defendant of her only friend, of her Kay Lee --_you're one of us. you can't escape us- it's your__**fate**__, your__**destiny**__, young skywalker_-- but was she too defendant?


	8. and then the emperor does deign

d. **and then does the Emperor deign**

"I thought you weren't supposed to," Leia wheedled.

"The Emperor granted permission. Just for this," Vader replied in his rumbling baritone dehumanized by the respirator.

"... why?" she asked, turning suspicious as she inspected the lightsaber's hilt.

Vader sighed; Leia was_always_suspicious of the Emperor and his motives.

"You must have done something right," he finally decided upon saying.

She dropped the hilt, pale-faced. Wiping hands suddenly sweaty, she picked it up and swallowed hard before denying it because she didn't _remember _doing anything the Emperor would have approved of.

"I _didn't_."


	9. at first it was simple

**Third Quartet:**  
Persuasion

1. _at first it was simple_

"Young Skywalker, sit with me."

Leia suppressed a shuddered and complied with a barely concealed grimace, shooting a hopeful look at her impassive father. She received no response, but had expected none: the seat beside the Emperor it was.


	10. and then came frustration

2. _then came frustration_

"You test my patience." His voice grated on Leia's ears, sharp and dangerous as his anger rose.

"I realize, Excellency. You must forgive me, though - I do not want to learn." Her polite words were far from it when she turned down his offer of apprenticeship yet again, and they were followed by the_thud_of her body against the marble wall of the grand audience hall.

The Emperor advanced slowly, robe whispering against the floor that, cold as it was, wasn't nearly cold as his withered heart. Leia doubted even Hoth could reach that level.

"Do _not _speak back to me, young Skywalker." Punctuated with the crackle of Sith lightening.

_Leia was strong._


	11. she saw nary a dimple

3. _she saw nary a dimple_

"I have a gift for you, young Skywalker," the Emperor said, his hideous smile revealing a row of decaying teeth and his muddy yellow eyes mocking her.

"How... very gracious of you, Excellency," she said hesitantly, not wanting to accept but always the diplomat. A Guard handed her a box. It was heavy.

"Won't you open it?" the Emperor prompted, and the ominous feeling Leia picked up on earlier deepened.

What else was she supposed to say? "I... of course, Excellency."

Reluctance weighed her hand down when she pulled apart the ribbon and removed the lid.

Kay Lee's face stared up at her, her brown eyes blank, and face contorted in pain and fear. Where were those dimples Leia remembered?

A strangled sob escaped her throat, hot tears running down her cheeks. The first the Emperor elicited, and not the last.

"Why?" she asked, the word filled with all the confusion and hurt and anger and heartache and turmoil of a thirteen-year-old girl whose lost her best friend.

The Emperor's sinister smile speaks for him, saying, we both know why, young Skywalker.

_But not strong enough._


	12. and deserved no commendation

4. _and deserved no commendation_

"Don't you want to know, who did it - don't you want to _punish _them? Make them _pay_?"

He repeated it over and over, like a broken record but not the same because he changed his words every time. His intent was the same. He wanted to provoke Leia's anger, force her down a path of revenge but she knew it had been on the Emperor's orders that her friend had died.

Kay Lee wasn't - hadn't been - her only friend, not anymore. Her best, her first, her favorite... but there were others whose lives were threatened, and the danger was finally made real. Made tangible, made clear that Palpatine's games had extended beyond exchanges of words and the Force between the two of them.

Leia 'hunted' down Kay Lee's supposed murderer, following the little clues Palpatine gave her and turning in an innocent man Palpatine framed.

For the others, so they wouldn't be gifted to her like Kay Lee was.

The Emperor gave her a medal with a mocking smile, for her efforts.


	13. vertigo: she knelt he smiled

_Final - Duet:_  
Vertigo

i. **she knelt - he smiled**

"Master," she whispered, the word like bile. Somehow, Leia managed to choke it up because she was _done _she was _finished_. She could be stoic on the receiving end of Palpatine's lightening, and Palpatine's cutting words, but she couldn't be stoic on the receiving end of his _wrath, _of his relentless, callous and completley heartless tactics. She couldn't watch the Emperor order more deaths on her account.

So Leia knelt, head bowed in deference when she pledged herself to Darth Sidious's teachings, not daring to look up and face his insidious smile when he accepted her oath of fealty.


	14. vertigo: her life, defiled

ii. **her life, defiled**

She stood to her Master's left, dressed similar to him in black. Brown eyes were hard, brown hair was tied back in a severe ponytail.

Once, she had been called Leia Skywalker. Even before that, she had been Leia Organa.

Now, she was the Emperor's apprentice.

Lord Vader was dead by her hand.


End file.
